Hot topics in March

Kosmos

Culture, travel, fashion and culinary delights: the Kosmos pages of Lufthansa Magazin bring you interesting and useful tidbits from around the world

Mr. Know it all

Global Copyshop

The Eiffel Tower is in Paris, the Statue of Liberty in New York and Tower Bridge in London? Undoubtedly. But the three most famous city landmarks in the world also have doppelgangers elsewhere on the planet.

Eiffel tower

There are replicas of the famous tower in Tokyo (taller than the original), Las Vegas and Tianducheng in China, where an entire neighborhood was built in the Parisian style – and is currently largely unoccupied.

Statue of Liberty

Paris boasts three scale copies of the New York landmark, and there are less exact replicas elsewhere in the world, including a Lego brick copy in Legoland (scale 1:5). The largest replica (scale 1:2) is in Las Vegas.

Tower Bridge

A copy of Tower Bridge stands in Suzhou in China – but strangely, it has four instead of two towers. The city also has replicas of Sydney’s modern Harbour Bridge and the Neo-Baroque Pont Alexandre III in Paris spanning its canals.

Simply sacred

A crumpled paper cube inspired the architects at S.M.A.O. to create a postmodern chapel in Spain. It is completely empty so that visitors can devote themselves to the effect of its quirky shape – and their faith.

Culture clash

The cherry blossom is the symbol of Japanese culture. Today, it is celebrated the world over.

Bento, beer & sake

The Japanese start celebrating the cherry blossom in late March with hanami, a traditional picnic in the park. Spots beneath the loveliest trees are highly coveted and often reserved with plastic tarps first thing in the morning.

North german privilege

Hamburg, Melbourne and Washington are the only cities outside of Japan that are permitted to crown an official cherry blossom princess. Hamburg, which has 5000 Japanese flowering cherry trees, puts on a grand firework display in May.

Southern belle

Macon, a small town in the U.S. state of Georgia, is the unofficial cherry blossom capital of the world. Starting in mid-March, it is engulfed in a sea of blossoms. The Cherry Blossom Festival includes concerts, parades and an air show.

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